One of the finest products of the Safavid court ateliers, this carpet once adorned the summer residence of the Habsburg emperors. The main field balances a sophisticated net of floral scrolls, large composite palmettes, cloud bands, buds, and blossoms with a myriad of real and fictional animals—dragons and Chinese antelope, lion and buffalo, tigers and leopards, ducks and pheasants. A verse found in the inner guard band likens a garden in springtime to the Garden of Paradise.

بیا که عهد چمن تازه کرد باد بهار که باز گشت چمن را طراوت رخ یار
Come, for the breeze of spring has renewed the promise of the meadow,
for the freshness of the beloved’s cheek has returned to the meadow.

چمن هنوز لب از شیر ابر ناشسته چو شاهد آن خط سبزش دمید گرد عذار
No sooner had the meadow washed the milk of the cloud from its lips
than those green whiskers sprouted around its countenance
as on the lip of an adolescent.

مخدّرات چمن جلوه م کینند امروز عروسیست نبات بنات را پندار
The cloistered ladies of the meadow display themselves today.
You would think it was a wedding for their daughter-sprouts.